


Sense Memory

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Memories, One Word Prompts, Senses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 13:22:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6706039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Far away from home, Phryne tries to recreate Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sense Memory

**Author's Note:**

> I was given the single word "tactile" as a prompt.

It was easy enough to conjure Jack's image and make him appear before her eyes, almost in the flesh. Phryne's memory for faces, for minute details of hair and clothing and eyes and expressions, was one of her greatest assets. She never forgot a face, even if sometimes the name faded into obscurity, with time. But Jack's face and figure would rise up unbidden, in crowds, in quiet restaurants, in stifling ballrooms, in the dead of night when she was wrapped in the arms of the lover of the moment. 

His voice was even easier to recreate, in her mind. Sometimes it seemed to Phryne as though Jack had been made of nothing but his voice, a warm gravelly tone wrapped in gray wool and angular cheekbones, sardonic and soft by turns. He had a quality of voice, of timbre, that her ear now instinctively sought out in all the men she encountered. Some gentlemen came near to matching it, but none of them could intrigue and arouse and infuriate and _caress_ her in quite the same way as Jack's voice. 

The smell of him was harder to find. Jack's hair pomade was a local product, his cologne was humbler than any of the exotic scents that the Bright Young Men of London liked to drench themselves in, whoever washed his clothes used unscented washing power, and there had only been a handful of times when Phryne had gotten close enough to smell the man under the police officer. The scent of his skin and his sweat was largely a mystery to her.

She had... so little. The memory of his brief, searing kisses, one unexpected and startling, the other longed for and as calming as a warm bath. A strong callused hand against the side of her face, or wrapped around her fingers. But that was it. She had never felt his body against hers, she had never even ventured to touch his face. She had undressed him once, but as a nurse rather than as a woman. She had looked, but she had not touched. And she grieved for the loss of an opportunity that had never quite presented itself. 

She clung to the taste, the single blazing taste of his mouth, for months. He was coffee and buttered toast, he was whiskey taken neat, he was a hot exhalation of need and desire... and that was all she could remember. And when Phryne could no longer remember the taste of his coffee-and-whiskey lips against hers, she knew it was time to go home.


End file.
